[An Insight On How To Decentralize Warframe's Arsenal]

Elemental mods should contribute damage, instead of converting pre-existing damage, but the amount of damage they contribute should be proportional to physical damage, and physical damage should always take precedent when you are shooting lead.

 

Lets have a quick demonstration. I have a gun, the kraken prime. My krakenp does 40 impact, 10 slash and 10 puncture damage by default. ALL elemental mods have the same ceiling, at 100% of highest phys. damage type (maybe on principle we can lower that, but its gotta be constant across the board). Once I've installed pistol pestilence, my krakenp does 40 impact, 10 slash, 10 puncture, and 40 poison. Combined elemental mods SHOULDN'T add cumulative damage, however, since having that damage type in the first place should validate the mods. So Pistol Pestilence and deep freeze together give +60% viral, NOT +120% viral.

 

As seele suggested, enemy armor tables are the biggest issue of damage 2.0. Armor types without a multiplier against a given element should be the exception, not the rule. For a given element, in each enemy type, most enemies should have a modest weakness OR strength against it (±25% damage), one should have a more robust strength (-50% damage) and one should have a significant weakness to it (+100% damage). This way, players will get noticeable utility from their elemental mods, but have to play the system and "Pokemon" to get the full use out of those mods. This model also gels with the core mechanics of warframe, since the game is primarily a power fantasy where players stomp weak mobs en masse with single, tougher enemies interspersed. Chargers may have a 25% resistance to x, but as they are cannon fodder anyways, players will gladly take this handicap for a multiplier against ancients. OR, if players wanna play crowd control, they can always do that too. This model would allow for more choice in player's arsenals.

 

I love warframe, and I love the effort DE has put into complex systems like Damage 2.0, but as it is currently implemented, players simply miss most of the hard work and talent that went into these systems. I understand that the game was made a power trip and it'll die a power trip, but as PsychoToxin said above, It would do wonders to be smaller than the bugs I'm stomping, for once. There's a reason games like Dark Souls and Roguelikes have gotten so popular in recent years; a little bit of challenge can go a long way.